Bopomofo Phonetic Language Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of the Bopomofo phonetic system, also known as Zhuyin Fuhao, used for transcribing Mandarin Chinese, particularly in Taiwan. It explores the system's history, tracing its origins to the early 1900s and its official recognition in 1928. The report delves into the features and writing structure of Bopomofo, highlighting its use of symbols to represent initials and finals of sounds, along with tonal diacritics. It also compares Bopomofo with other transcription systems like Xiaoerjing, Dungan, and Hanyu Pinyin, emphasizing its unique role in preserving the proper diction of Mandarin without Western influence. The report concludes that while Bopomofo is a significant learning tool, its effectiveness varies depending on the learner's background and goals.

Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
History and background.............................................................................................................2
Features and writing structure....................................................................................................3
Comparisons...............................................................................................................................4
Conclusions................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
The significance of Zhuyin Fuhao lies in its widespread use by the people of Taiwan as a
transliteration system for modern Mandarin Chinese and also as a method for transcribing the
other dialects of traditional Chinese. While this system is dependent on the phonetic
representation of the alphabet the system gains its importance from the being an electronic
input method that is widely used and is a popular method of using Chinese in the electronic
devices. Zhuyin Fuhao and Zhuyin are traditional names for the transcription method while
the Bopomofo is the colloquial term derived from the first four letters of the alphabet.
Another important factor contributing to the importance of the system as a learning tool is the
use of the system by the students of the mandarin which makes this the most popular version
of the basic learning tool for the learners of Chinese language (Taele & Hammond, 2015).
The other most used language in the region Wade-Giles system uses a modified Latin
alphabet which is in many cases an official language in the East Asian regions has not gained
the simplicity of the phonetic system that is the basis of the Bopomofo. Therefore, the
significance of the Bopomofo in the region as a learning tool and a popular transcription
system that standardizes the Chinese language is the reason behind this exploration which
compares it to another popular system to find out the strength of the system over others and
the reason behind its popularity (Wang, 2008).
Phonetic characteristics of the system are the basis of the system and the alphabets of the
system are based on the sound of the Chinese characters which are also used for the
representation of the sound in the script. Therefore, the system is more easily understandable
as this makes the speaking of the language easy which is not one of the characteristics of the
traditional mandarin. Therefore, the popularity and the ease of use make this one of the most
popular systems that remain popular in the region through various printed books and
magazines (Wang et al., 2017).
History and background
History origin of the Bopomofo system begins in the early 1900s from the Zhang Binglin's
shorthand script, which had been used as the source of the new system by the Commission on
the Unification of Pronunciation. The person responsible for the development of the system
was Wu Zhihui which led to the development of the system in 1913 although this was not
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officialized until 1928 (Gui Su, 2017). The system, as it was officialized was named Guoyin
Zimu in its first conception in 1928 which led to opposition by the traditionalists as the
system had the potential to replace the traditional Chinese characters as it was much simpler.
The renaming of the alphabet in the April 1930 mitigated those fears by remaining the
characters as Zhuyin Fuhao which then became one of the most popular pronunciation based
transcription system for the various Chinese dialects which led to the unification of the
language Chinese language through standardized writing form for many of the dialects
(Kulieva, 2009).
The Zhuyin Fuhao is one of the primary teaching languages in Taiwan that is used primarily
in basic and intermediate education as a medium of teaching because of its all-encompassing
nature that covers all dialects and colloquial Chinese used in the region. The use of the
Bopomofo text, while learning traditional Chinese in the primary education, is one of the
most important factors that denotes the importance of the system in the overall education
system (Williams, 2016). The role of the script as the teaching aid is significant
characteristics that mark the importance of the system in the learning Chinese. While the
functionality of the use of the Bopomofo system is critiqued by many as too different from
Chinese to have any real impact on the learning of mandarin the significant span of the
system and the relative ease of learning for beginners cannot be questioned. On the other
hand, many think that the phonetic understanding of the language is essential for nonnative
speakers who are prone to errors in communicating like mispronunciation if they only learn
the written version of a language. This is also the reason behind the popularity of the
Bopomofo method of input in electronic devices which make the communication with
nonnatives easier (Chen et al., 2016). Thus, the history of the Bopomofo is one of the
significant parts of understanding the purpose of the system which is undoubtedly facilitating
communication and destruction of the communication barriers between the various dialects
and form of Mandarin used in the region.
Features and writing structure
The writing system of Bopomofo is based on the semi syllabary on the initials and finals of
the sound represented through symbols. There the use of the diacritics helps with
understanding the inflection or tone of the specific sound. The number of the symbols used in
the language is 37 symbols with 4 tonal diacritics. Among the 37 symbols, there are 21
initials and 16 final. The symbols are derived from the sounds so the specific initials and
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finals form the pronunciation for the Mandarin language. The transcribing can undertake two
distinct patterns which have their own unique characteristics from the point of view of the
transcription of the sounds. One is from right to left in vertical columns beside the characters
and the other form is written above the characters from left to right. The placement of the
tone diacritics is a matter of confusion in this regard as although the system uses the tone
diacritics on the right side of the vertical columns and above the horizontal ones their position
is treated interchangeably by many. Therefore, the facilitation of the phonetic understanding
of the mandarin is not without its own specific barriers that might cause confusion among the
learners. The tonal marks while confusing is an important facet of the Zhuyin fuhao, which
marks its significant advantage over the other forms of learning Mandarin. There are many
similarities of the Zhuyin with the traditional mandarin which can be identified from the
stroke marks used while writing the Bopomofo which is identical to that of the mandarin.
The assimilation of the same qualities in the form of the Unicode characters forms the most
popular input method for personal computing devices which is also another sign of the
Bopomofo style which is chosen because of its simplicity and ability to represent the various
Chinese dialects without much deviation (Gillam, 2003).
Comparisons
There are many systems of transcribing Chinese and its various dialects and all of them have
their specific role in the language development in the various regions. The simplified Chinese
is based on the factors that are unique to several languages, therefore, the various scripts
developed for modern Chinese has their own similarities and differences .the following
comparison has been carried out to point out the differences and similarities between the
various forms of the modern Chinese of varying importance. Therefore, the use of the modern
Chinese and the significance of the Zhuyin compared to other forms can be understood from
the comparison (Wong et al., 2017).
Xiaoerjing or the minor script is written from right to left and has been present in China since
the arrival of Muslims in the region since Tang dynasty. The mosque system has no
significant influence on the Chinese but the daily system used was influenced greatly by the
Chinese characters and the phonology of the language is similar. Although the variation of
the system is replaced by the modern unified versions like the Zhuyin of pinyin.
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Dungan language, on the other hand, is based on the various Cyrillic influence in the system
which leads to the various dependencies in the system that is being covered. The language
used in the Dungun region is not that much different from the variety of Zhongyuan
Mandarin, which is the phonetically similar to the Dungan. The main similarity of the
Dungun with the Bopomofo is the use of the diacritics and tonal representation through the
same which makes this similar to the Bopomofo for Zhuyin in many regards.
Hanyu Pinyin is another more modern Chinese that has since replaced the Bopomofo or the
Zhuyin as the Hanyu uses the Roman alphabet to write Chinese and represent the phonetic
sounds rather than use the strokes form the Chinese alphabets. This was developed in 1950 by
the effort of the many experts and while the majority of the Chinese population accepted the
language as the standard Chinese there are many rival romanticized versions of the Chinese
are present in the various regions in an isolated manner (Hayes-Harb & Cheng, 2016). Most
of these languages are present in the south of Taiwan. Incidentally, while the pinyin system
replaced the Bopomofo as the phonetic system of the Chinese a language the Bopomofo
remains the most significant rival of the pinyin that is stopping the spread of the pinyin in the
southern regions. The phonetic version of the Bopomofo is also the strong contender for the
use in digital input methods and while the pinyin is clearly gaining popularity as the
adaptation of the western symbols make it easier to understand the similarity of the
Bopomofo with the traditional Chinese remains its main strength.
The similarity of the Chinese standard of the pinyin is the main significance as this allows for
the Chinese to be easily understood by the foreigners and the same value is applied on the
ability to convert the other languages to Chinese. This phonetic representation is in any ways
similar to that of the Bopomofo but as this uses the Roman symbols that conform to the
international phonetic language standard this allows for the better understanding for the
people who are not familiar with the Mandarin alphabet (Hayes-Harb & Cheng, 2016).
However, while this is the more basic form of the Chinese the people who are familiar with
the characters of the Chinese alphabet can learn much faster using the Zhuyin method which
uses the Chinese characters to present the phonetic language which gives additional insight
into the written version of the traditional Chinese (Wong et al., 2017). Therefore, it is
common to the various students of Chinese as a foreign language to start with pinyin and then
move to Zhuyin as their understanding of the Chinese characters grow. Therefore, while the
systems might use similar techniques to develop the learning method for the same language,
the diction, reading ability and the understanding vary greatly between learners. Their
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personal attributes and the speed of their progress also are affected by the method or phonetic
language used as the basis of the education.
The easy adaptability of the pinyin form the English is also its greatest weakness as the
English phonetics’ presented in the Chinese cause distortion of the diction which retains a
distinct English accent that is foreign to the native speakers of Mandarin. Therefore, the
scope of learning actual Chinese without any western influence is impossible while learning
Chinese through pinyin. In this case, the phonetics represented by the Zhuyin is much better
at making the Chinese more distinct and thus making the learner connect with the mandarin
on a much deeper level.
Conclusions
It is clear from the above discussion that ht Bopomofo or the Zhuyin method of phonetically
representing the mandarin language is a significant way of learning Chinese without any
western influence. This helps retain the proper diction understanding of the Chinese language
that is not present in the pinyin that replaced the system in the mainland China. However, the
use of the Chinese symbols in the phonetic representation causes problems for the second
language learners for whom the other forms of the standardized Chinese are much more
effective as a learning medium. Therefore, while comparing the influence of the learning
system on the diction and understandability of the language, the system makes the application
of the leaning method more effective under certain circumstances. This is surmised from the
history of the Bopomofo system which can help explain how the system still exists after
being replaced by pinyin in the 1950s.
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References
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Wang, Y., McBride, C., Zhou, Y., Malatesha Joshi, R., & Farver, J. A. M. (2017). Becoming
literate in Chinese: a comparison of native‐speaking and non‐native‐speaking
children. Journal of Research in Reading.
Wong, S. W., Mok, P. P., Chung, K. K. H., Leung, V. W., Bishop, D. V., & Chow, B. W. Y.
(2017). Perception of native English reduced forms in Chinese learners: Its role in listening
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